WASHINGTON ― Some recipients of federal grants are still complaining about missing money despite a court restraining order blocking President Donald Trump’s administration from freezing federal funds.
Head Start providers in multiple states are getting error messages when they try to access accounts they use to request funding drawdowns.
“We’re aware of at least 40 programs that have requested funds to draw them down and have not received those funds as of yet,” Tommy Sheridan, a deputy director at the National Head Start Association, told HuffPost.
More than 1,600 local Head Start organizations around the country receive Department of Health and Human Services grants to provide early education and other services to families with young children. The organizations get approved for funding annually but draw down the money as needed in a piecemeal fashion.
A “PBS NewsHour” journalist first reported on Tuesday that multiple Head Start providers were complaining of ongoing issues with federal funds.
It’s likely the holdup is unintentional. A senior administration official said it stems from a technical processing issue last week. “That has been resolved, and any ongoing error messages being reported by Head Start providers are a result of the residual backlog of payment approvals from that technical glitch,” the official told HuffPost.
The Office of Management and Budget told federal agencies to pause grants last week, but two federal courts have since blocked the pause, and the Justice Department has told federal agencies that they have to comply with the court orders.
“Federal agencies cannot pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate any awards or obligations on the basis of the OMB Memo, or on the basis of the President’s recently issued Executive Orders,” reads a court order notice.
In a court filing Monday, the Justice Department said it issued the notice to federal agencies Friday evening.
The document is significant because it shows the federal government cooperating with the court order after the Trump administration sent mixed signals about the funding freeze and seemed to relish confrontation with other parts of the federal government.
Head Start grants total about $10 billion annually, serving about 800,000 preschoolers, meaning it’s a relatively small federal program. Head Start generally receives strong support from both Democrats and enough Republicans to protect it from cuts, though the Heritage Foundation think tank’s Project 2025 outline for the government — widely seen as a blueprint for the second Trump administration — called for eliminating Head Start.
OMB’s original memo instructed all agencies to “temporarily pause” grants and loans, with exceptions for Social Security, Medicare and assistance provided “directly to individuals.”
The memo created confusion among organizations that receive grants to provide in-kind support to the needy, such as home-delivered meals for older adults and heating assistance for the poor. The White House later said those two programs wouldn’t be affected.
Then OMB rescinded the memo ― but White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the intent of the memo remained and that the funding freeze was still on, despite the court order last week telling the government to delay the freeze.
“The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented,” Leavitt said in a statement, referring to the executive orders.
On Friday, a second federal judge issued a restraining order blocking the freeze, citing Leavitt’s statement.
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Joel Ryan, who directs the state of Washington’s association of Head Start providers, told HuffPost that providers there hadn’t halted any services despite being unable to draw funds. He didn’t think the funding problem was an innocent mistake.
“They may be trying to undo it, but I don’t see this as something where this is a problem at HHS and a career bureaucrat made a mistake,” Ryan said. “They put a funding freeze on programs like Head Start and there was a massive outcry, and they’re continuing to try to fix it but they haven’t fixed it fully.”